GNOME 2.18 Release Notes (Draft 2)
Contents
Overview
GNOME 2.18 is the latest version of the GNOME Desktop; a popular, multi-platform desktop environment for Linux™, UNIX™ and other platforms. Based on Free and Open Source Software, GNOME provides all of the common tools computer users have come to expect of a modern computing environment, as well as a flexible and powerful platform for software developers. The GNOME Desktop is released every six months with new features, improvements, "bug" fixes and translations. GNOME 2.18 continues this trend with a few notable improvements:
- Find out where all your disk space is going with Baobab's new ring chart view.
- Pick up where you left off using the Recent-Files or just search for new distractions using the new Deskbar applet.
- Develop better tools and applications using Glade and Devhelp
- Keep better track of your most important notes by pinning them, making sure they will always stay on top. In addition to this, Tomboy now sports bullet lists, just as simple as adding a * or a -.
- Encode your audio in more formats including OGG, MP3 or even AAC!
- Create better desktop themes using Metacity's new theming system.
The GNOME desktop is not always about work, it is also about play. This release adds two new games, glChess, a chess game where you can play either against a friend, or try to master the computer opponent and GnomeSudoku, the japanese crossword puzzle. With the newly added Internet Multiplayer support to some of the games, you know have the chance to beat your friends online in GNibbles, Iango and Four-in-a-Row.
- Help fixing GNOME's bugs using Bug Buddy's new simplified interface.
- !!!The GNOME Dictionary now highlights phonetic references and understands Thai.
- !!!The Eye of GNOME now automatically rotates images based on the EXIF information embedded in supporting image formats.
- !!!The Epiphany web-browser now uses more Tangofied icons, shows favicons in the address entry dropdown menu, and improves processor efficiency by using new features in GLib.
- !!!Whether you are viewing several instances of PDF at the same time, putting together a presentation, Evince handles all your document viewing. To learn more about GNOME and the qualities that distinguish it from other computer desktop environments (like usability, accessibility, internationalization and freedom) visit the About GNOME page on our website.
- !!!The Evolution group-ware client can now customize the fetching of IMAP headers.
!!!The GNOME Display Manager can now customize the Options/F10 menu, set fallback images for themes, a smarter face browser, and support for the ConsoleKit.
- !!!The GNOME Power Manager can now control frequency scaling and also uses less memory.
- !!!To help you keep your secrets, you can now use Seahorse to encrypt, sign, decrypt, or verify them from within Gedit, Epiphany, or directly from the clipboard. This release also adds support to manage GNOME Keyring passwords and secrets, OpenPGP and SSH keys. Support has also been added for Avahi, DBus, standard dialogs and widgets.
- !!!Vino is a tool for remote desktop administration. Its capabilities include sharing a local desktop remotely. This release adds notification icon to display and disconnect remote connections.
Internationalization and Accessibility
Gnome Speech
Gnome Speech is an API for producing text-to-speech input or output. This release adds new drivers for Loqeundo, Cepstral Swift, and eSpeak, and improves support for Chinese with the IBMTTS engine.
Magnifier
The GNOME Magnifier is an application with capabilities including zooming into portions of the desktop. This release contains a variety of improvements including support for XComposite, colorblind filters, and brightness manipulation. This release also removed a memory leak. ( Insert screenshot ) Click here for more details.
Pango
Pango is an API for laying out and rendering text. This release includes support for rendering vertical text in languages such as Chinese and Japanese. ( Insert screenshot ) Click here for more details.